It’s not often that tales of Internet predators have inspiring conclusions, so when we ran across this story we thought we would share it.

The story starts out with the telltale mistake that leads to such situations: a young girl, alone in her bedroom at night, with a computer in her room, chatting in an AOL chatroom. Natalie Greimann ran across a boy she thought had sent her a photo, but instead used the direct IM connection to hack into her computer and gain access to her online accounts (or so he said). He then tried to blackmail the Natalie into stripping for him.

Instead, what he got was a 14-year old with a lot of backbone and a mother who did not take such things lightly. Within 30 minutes the local police were at their house and building a case against the creep. The search for the predator is currently ongoing in Arkansas.

There are a few morals to this tale:

1. Never allow your child to have a computer in their room at night
2. Just because a chatroom is hosted by a reputable company does not mean that it is safe

Just another reminder how vital it is to talk frankly with your kids about who they can run into out there in the wilds of the Internet, and a reminder to be especially cautious with chat rooms. They remain the #1 place to meet an online predator.

Filed under: Internet Safety News